Kansas City Road Trip

This past weekend, Madison and I headed to Kansas City for her first dance competition of the season. We were joined by her friend Tae'lor and her mom Dawn. Here is a run down of our crazy and fun weekend.

Sat: Left for KC in the morning and was about an hour from KC when we found ourselves in the middle of a high speed chase. Pretty cool, but kinda scary at the same time. We enjoyed turning the music up really load, singing along and seat dancing. This was especially fun when cars were passing us; the girls were mortified! We stopped at the Target in Olathe in order to get some new swimsuits. We arrived at our awesome hotel in Overland Park and realized there were lots of sports competitions going on. There were teams of soccer and tennis as well as possibly basketball. All BOY sports. The girls were giggling quite frequently!!!! :) We ate at Applebees and then went to see the movie Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. It was a good one.

We surprised the girls with goodie "Good Luck" boxes full of girlie fun things.

Tae'lor and Madison in the hotel room on Saturday night.

Dawn and I singing with Twizzlers to the girls; there is no end to the amount of things we can do to embarrass them.

Sunday: The girls got up and went swimming and then we headed back up to the room to get ready. We arrived at the convention center at 3pm dressed and ready to go. Then it was time to hurry up and wait. We watched some really interesting dances, some shocking. It is so sad to see the groups that wear adult costumes (lots of skin, sexy, etc.) and the choreography looked liked it should have had a dance pole in the middle of it. Really, really sad.

The girls did their dance and Madison did well. She was about the only one who smiled and generally worked it! Unfortunately due to this particular competition's rules, they weren't eligible for the top ten awards. SOOO, they got a pin and that was it. Here is a breakdown of how this is scored and I will skip the technical stuff.

Each group is placed into a category based on the type of dance that it is (jazz, lyrical, hip hop, ballet) and age group. The judges score each dance against a point system; max is 300 points. The points are divided into categories (roughly 1st through 4th). Each group is given their scores. At the end, they combine all of the groups by age and give their top 10. This is the top 10 group dances based on the scores. So, whoever scored the highest points in the junior division would be #1 and it goes to #10.

Madison's group scored 270 (roughly 3rd place) according to their scores. We aren't sure where they stand overall because they weren't eligible. Overall, I think they did good. Their biggest missed points were their performance faces (not smiling). This can easily be improved upon.

We finally got out of the convention center 6 hours later at 9pm and went straight to the hotel to remove makeup, hair and costumes. We then went straight to IHOP and ate some yummy pancakes, eggs and bacon.

The girls headed to the hot tub after eating and we relaxed before heading back to the room.

Monday: The ride home wasn't very fun. There was snow and ice on the ground and so the first hour was really slow. My washer fluid was also frozen, so I kept having to stop to dump water on my windshield. As soon as we got back to OKC, Madison headed straight to honor choir practice and then to dance practice later that night.

Overall, we enjoyed the weekend. It was a lot of fun to spend time with her, laugh and goof off. I am proud of how she danced and behaved. Love my girl!

This weekend is competition #2, but we only have to go across town!

18 months and Counting

Spencer is now 18 months old. He had his well check on Monday and no shots. That was a great surprise! I thought I would update everyone on him and his growing personality.

First the stats: no real changes. He is 25 pounds (25-50%) and 32 1/2 inches long (50%).

According to his feeding profile, he should be able to use a spoon effectively. Well, I guess he didn't get the letter on this. We always give him a fork and spoon, but he doesn't usually use them and if he does, he doesn't do it well.

He enjoys his books, rolling a ball or truck back and forth and playing with Haree (Harley). He absolutely loves to take things out and put them back in. It could be laundry in and out of a basket or Little People in and out of a bucket. He will do it over and over again.

He hates socks, always has. He constantly pulls his socks off and you can find them in the crib, on the floor or the couch.

He finds delight in "helping" and following basic instructions. He finds Sissy's phone and he runs with glee to give it to her. He absolutely must take the dirty diaper and throw it in the diaper pail. Cleaning up the toys is such a fun game to him. It is so much fun to grab toys quickly and dump them into the toy bin only to dump it out again.

He can climb on the couch by himself. He will go and sit down next to the shoes for you to put his shoes on him and then asks for his hat. If you are sitting on the floor, you are fair game: he will grab a book and plop between your legs and "read."

He is very particular on what he wants mom to do and what he wants dad to do. Dad must be the one to give him a bath and put him to bed. I must feed him and generally be around him all the time. I guess we each have our roles, he has just determined them for us.

He plays fetch with Harley, but lately Harley hasn't been bringing the ball back (I think Harley is jealous).

Sorry, no pictures. I will try to get some soon. I have another post to be working on.

Surfer Dude

Spencer's daycare teachers have called him a surfer dude for awhile now. His hair is really blond and a bit on the longer side. Time had come to get it cut short. He has had many haircuts, but it was needing cut way to often and required a professional to try and cut a moving target (his head).
Justin had been suggesting that we cut it with the clippers to get rid of all of his baby hair and he said it would help it grow back better. Bottom line was that he needed it cut.

So on Saturday I put him in the highchair, took off his shirt and got the clippers out. I REALLY was shocked at how long the hair was that I was taking off.

I knew I was past the point of no return when 4 inch strands were falling from the shears.
UUUHHHHHGGGG
It was killing me.
There, fine it was done.
Boohoo, he looks like a mean marine now.

Before, with his flowy blond locks.

After, with his new buzz cut. :(

Okay, not such a great picture.

He looks like a 3 year old marine now. Where did my baby go?

Mother Nature Has PMS

There has been a lot of talk lately of doomsday, the end of the world and my personal favorite "God is punishing us." I think I have figured out what is really going on in the world and it's natural disasters; Mother Nature has PMS.
It is quite simple you see. When I was in college I took a geology class from a professor that was old enough to know how dirt was made. He was quite the kook. His favorite line to say to the class was, "In geology time, 1 million years is like one year in our time." He reminded of this time line every class period. SOOOOO, if that is true (and I assuming it is because he saw how dirt was made ya know) and PMS usually lasts around a week, then for the next 20,000 years the earth should be seeing an onslaught of tornadoes, earth quakes, tsunamis, blizzards, ice storms, flooding, mudslides and other weather related issues. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am convinced! A full blown blizzard, two earthquakes, tornado watches and an ice storm within one month, that is just here in Oklahoma. We all know what has happen around the rest of the US and around the world.
Here is proof from the most recent PMS outburst. Rain, freezing rain started on Thursday. By Thursday evening it was all snow. It snowed until Saturday morning. Totals were 1/2-3/4 inch of ice and about 7-8 inches of snow. At one point there were 140,000 people without power.

Friday at 9:15am. Freezing rain had covered our bushes.

Friday at 9:15am. Snow is falling and at times, really large flakes.

Friday at 12:30pm. Growing amount of snow on the bushes.

Friday at 12:30pm. Snow continues to fall.

Friday at 12:30pm. Berries are frozen solid.

Saturday at 2:30pm. Large icicle from our roof.

Saturday at 2:30pm. Our small tree bending from the weight.

Saturday at 2:30pm. The final amounts of snow on the bushes.

Blah, Blah, Blah

I wrote this post on Monday and never got any pictures to go with it. I am going to post it otherwise, it may never get done.....

It has been a crazy couple of months in this household; lots of things going on. Madison has been practicing honor choir twice a week after school. This will continue through the month of February. She is also preparing for her first dance competition coming up in less than three weeks. We had dress rehearsal a few weeks ago and that was okay, only some minor costume adjustments. Tonight after honor choir practice she has a two hour practice (it is usually just one hour). She will be worn out when she gets home!

Spencer has decided that he can say words now. It is hard to imagine that two months ago, he said less than 5 words. That has definitely changed! Some of his new words include:

• Haree (Harley)
• anyou (thank you)
• ub yooooooooo (love you)
• oxs (socks)
• shoe (says this really good)
• ju (juice)
• ruu (fruit)
• puppeee (puppy)
• issee (Sissy)
• ba (bath)
• baaa (ball)
• nack (snack)
• ootbaaa (football)
• nana (banana)

Other words are coming along as well. He doesn't bobble when he walks or tries to get up anymore and his balance is overall much better. He can cruise through the house fairly quickly on those two little legs.

He is also growing taller and heavier. It seemed like overnight his t-shirts didn't fit him anymore. His belly began to hang out and that just isn't attractive at any age. Thank goodness all of the long sleeve t-shirts are clearanced right now. Gotta love JC Penny t-shirts for $2.39!

Spencer loves to take things out and put them back in. It doesn't matter what it is. He will take laundry out of the baskets and throw them all over the floor. He will always clean up after himself and put the clothes back in. Unfortunately, his sorting technique needs some work. He also likes to help put the clothes into the washer, out of the washer into the dryer and out of the dryer. Now, if I could only get him to fold and put everything away.

Grandma's Visit

My mom was supposed to come visit at Thanksgiving, but because of the nasty H1N1 flu, she couldn't make it. Thank goodness for government holidays! She was able to make it for a short 3 day weekend visit. The kids had a blast and I think she did to.

Spencer and Grandma Connie playing outside with sticks and grass.

Grandma and Madison posing for one of the few shots that Madison would let me take.

Spencer and his beloved football. Gorgeous day in the 60's!

Spencer discovering Grandma's water bottle. MMMMM good!

Spencer giving kisses to Grandma Connie.

Spencer sharing his food...sort of. He would act like he was going to give it to Grandma and then quickly put it in his mouth! What a little stinker!

Play time on Grandma! He would climb up over and over again to get turned upside down.

It was a good weekend. My mom learned to play the Wii, hilarious! She loved up on her grandkids and we did some shopping to boot! Good times!

Bobble Head

I'm not quite sure where Spencer learned this "bobble head dance," but it is very funny. He started doing it spontaneously in his highchair and hasn't stopped. So, enjoy the 30 seconds of "Spencer the Bobble Head" doll.